Steven Spielberg's Jaws
Steven Spielberg has directed a large majority of the most successful movies, including six that are ranked in the top 25 highest grossing films to date. When many think of Spielberg’s success that first thing of Jaws, most of the time. Jaws was his first real hit and not only made him famous but was the sole spark that ignited his career. Others see that E.T gave him his first insight to fame, but you can name many of his movies and make a case for all of them. The purpose of this paper is to research and uncover what made Spielberg’s films successful and what led to him being one of the highest paid directors. Steven Spielberg was born December 18, 1946, in Cincinnati. His father's work as an electrical engineer led to a change of jobs
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The effectiveness of the movie is developed through a mix of camera angles, types of shots, and through montages. I am going to attempt to analyze Spielberg’s amazing camera work in relation to the effect it had on the movie.This movie keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat while not even introducing the true star of the movie until its half way over. The viewer knows that the shark is there and due to several point of view shots, is given the opportunity to see through its eyes. Spielberg uses a lot of camera movement throughout the movie, this adds to the success of its suspense. In the scene where Chrissie gets eaten by the shark, the camera goes under water and a low-angle view is used to look up at her body. The camera then switches to an eye-level view on top of the water. This is where the viewer sees Chrissie get pulled around and then finally dragged under. An interesting shot is the one of Chief Brody on the beach when he witnesses Alex Kintners death. The camera does a close-up shot of Chief Brody’s face while the background is being pulled away from him. By using the technique selective focusing the viewer is able to get inside the movie and feel what the Chief is feeling upon watching the attack.
A combination of cutting to continuity, and parallel editing were presented by Spielberg in Jaws. In the scene where Hooper, Quint, and Brody put together the shark cage, cutting to continuity was used to give the viewer the idea of what they were doing without showing every boring detail of assembling the cage. Parallel editing is the alternating of shots between two sequences, suggesting that they take place at the same
The effectiveness of the movie is developed through a mix of camera angles, types of shots, and through montages. I am going to attempt to analyze Spielberg’s amazing camera work in relation to the effect it had on the movie.This movie keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat while not even introducing the true star of the movie until its half way over. The viewer knows that the shark is there and due to several point of view shots, is given the opportunity to see through its eyes. Spielberg uses a lot of camera movement throughout the movie, this adds to the success of its suspense. In the scene where Chrissie gets eaten by the shark, the camera goes under water and a low-angle view is used to look up at her body. The camera then switches to an eye-level view on top of the water. This is where the viewer sees Chrissie get pulled around and then finally dragged under. An interesting shot is the one of Chief Brody on the beach when he witnesses Alex Kintners death. The camera does a close-up shot of Chief Brody’s face while the background is being pulled away from him. By using the technique selective focusing the viewer is able to get inside the movie and feel what the Chief is feeling upon watching the attack.
A combination of cutting to continuity, and parallel editing were presented by Spielberg in Jaws. In the scene where Hooper, Quint, and Brody put together the shark cage, cutting to continuity was used to give the viewer the idea of what they were doing without showing every boring detail of assembling the cage. Parallel editing is the alternating of shots between two sequences, suggesting that they take place at the same